You may not have heard but...

The 3.5-liter Ford Zetec-R engine, used last year by Michael Schumacher, was able to rev to 14,500 rpm. This meant that the pistons were being subjected to approximately 8000G no fewer than 242 times every second and the connecting rods were being given three ton loadings at the same frequency. Ford recently announced that if a connecting rod had broken at maximum speed, the released piston would have the energy to go vertically upwards for over 100 meters...